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Read me first: About the mhGAP Community Toolkit
Thank you for your interest in the mhGAP Community Toolkit. We hope that you find the material in this toolkit useful as you seek to promote and address mental health in your community.
Mental health conditions are common in all regions of the world and have a significant impact not only on the health and well-being of those affected but also on their families, friends and the communities they live in. At the same time, communities contain a wide range of resources that can be used to promote mental health and to support the recovery of people with mental health conditions.
This toolkit has been developed as part of WHO’s mental health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP), which aims to ensure that people with mental health conditions receive high-quality, evidence-based mental health services that promote human rights, dignity and equity. It also aims to achieve universal health coverage through integration of mental health services throughout primary, secondary facility-based and community-based care.
In service of these aims, WHO’s mhGAP provides a set of guidelines, tools and training packages to help countries and regions build up and expand their mental health services.
Purpose of the toolkit
The purpose of the mhGAP Community Toolkit is to promote the expansion of mental health services beyond the primary health-care setting by doing the following:
• highlighting the opportunities that exist within communities to promote mental health, prevent mental health conditions and expand access to mental health services;
• providing guidance on how to identify local mental health needs and match them with activities that build on available resources and opportunities while engaging the local community;
• providing practical tips on delivering mental health activities, programmes and interventions in the community;
• combatting stigma, discrimination, social exclusion and human rights abuses that affect people with mental health conditions.
Who the toolkit is for
The mhGAP Community Toolkit is intended for all persons who wish to promote and address mental health in their community. If you are a programme manager or service planner in the governmental or nongovernmental sectors, the toolkit will assist you to identify possible settings, activities and providers to meet the mental health needs of the local population and support training programmes in the community. If you are a community provider (e.g. teacher, social worker, police officer, community health worker), you will find this toolkit useful in your daily work. You may also seek to use this toolkit in your position as a member of the community (e.g. as a village elder, faith group member or youth group leader) or in your personal role as a carer, family member or friend of a person with a mental health condition.
How to use the toolkit
This toolkit is divided into two parts:
Part 1 is an informational guide for programme managers or service planners in either the governmental or nongovernmental sectors who are interested in developing community-level mental health services.
Part 2 is a practical manual for anyone wishing to promote and address mental health within their community.
It is not anticipated that any one agency or person working in a community will use all the activities or interventions described in this toolkit. Rather, community providers and service planners responsible for organizing community mental health programmes should focus on the needs of community members and the gaps that exist in the services available, which will be different for each community. Part 1 contains a useful framework for understanding the needs of a community, a service mapping exercise, guidance on building cross-sectoral collaboration and conducting training and supervision of community providers. Part 2 provides practical tips for carrying out community-level mental health activities and interventions.
You are encouraged to read the mhGAP Community Toolkit and to use the information in it for your day-to-day work or planning in your community. The authors welcome users’ comments or suggestions to improve this toolkit.